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One of the major drawbacks of time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) is generally represented by pile-up distortion, which strongly bounds the maximum acquisition speed to a few percent of the laser excitation rate. Based on a previous theoretical analysis, recently we presented the first, to the best of our knowledge, low-distortion and high-speed TCSPC system capable of overcoming the pile-up limitation by perfectly matching the single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) dead time to the laser period. In this work, we validate the proposed system in a standard fluorescence measurement by comparing experimental data with the reference theoretical framework. As a result, a count rate of 32 Mc/s was achieved with a single-channel system still observing a negligible lifetime distortion.

Multispectral/hyperspectral fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy ( λ FLIM) is a promising tool for studying functional and structural biological processes. The rich information content provided by a multidimensional dataset is often in contrast with the acquisition speed. In this work, we develop and experimentally demonstrate a wide-field λ FLIM setup, based on a novel time-resolved 18 × 1 single-photon avalanche diode array detector working in a single-pixel camera scheme, which parallelizes the spectral detection, reducing measurement time. The proposed system, which implements a single-pixel camera with a compressive sensing scheme, represents an optimal microscopy framework towards the design of λ FLIM setups.

Photonic quantum technologies promise a revolution of the world of information processing, from simulation and computing to communication and sensing, thanks to the many advantages of exploiting single photons as quantum information carriers. In this scenario, single-photon detectors play a key role. On the one hand, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are able to provide remarkable performance on a broad spectral range, but their applicability is often limited by the need of cryogenic operating temperatures. On the other hand, single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) overcome the intrinsic limitations of SNSPDs by providing a valid alternative at room temperature or slightly below. In this paper, we review the fundamental principles of the SPAD operation and we provide a thorough discussion of the recent progress made in this field, comparing the performance of these devices with the requirements of the quantum photonics applications. In the end, we conclude with our vision of the future by summarizing prospects and unbeaten paths that can open new perspectives in the field of photonic quantum information processing.

Single-molecule localization microscopy is a powerful technique with vast potential to study light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Nanostructured environments can modify the fluorescence emission of single molecules and the induced decay-rate modification can be retrieved to map the local density of optical states (LDOS). However, the modification of the emitter’s point spread function (PSF) can lead to its mislocalization, setting a major limitation to the reliability of this approach. In this paper, we address this by simultaneously mapping the position and decay rate of single-molecules and by sorting events by their decay rate and PSF size. With the help of numerical simulations, we are able to infer the dipole orientation and to retrieve the real position of mislocalized emitters. We have applied our ap-proach of single-molecule fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (smFLIM) to study the LDOS modification of a silver nanowire over a field of view of ~10 µm2 with a single-molecule localizatio...

In recent years, time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) has become the technique of choice in many life science analyses, where fast and faint luminous signals are recorded with picosecond accuracy. Nevertheless, the maximum operating frequency of a single TCSPC acquisition channel limits the measurement speed, especially when scanning point systems are exploited. In order to increase the speed of TCSPC experiments, many multichannel systems based on single photon avalanche diode arrays have been proposed in the literature, which integrate thousands of pixels on the same chip. Unfortunately, the huge number of data generated by this kind of system can easily bring to the saturation of the transfer bandwidth to the external processing unit. For this reason, several different readout architectures have been proposed in the literature, attempting to exploit at best the limited bandwidth under TCSPC operating conditions. In this paper, some typical readout approaches, namely clock-driven and event-driven readouts, are discussed and compared, along with a recently-introduced router-based algorithm that is specifically designed to obtain maximum bandwidth exploitation under any condition. Quantitative comparisons are performed starting from imager response of the systems, which is the rate of recorded events in the case of uniform illumination of the detector array.

Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) are a powerful alternative to central processing units, especially for data-parallel, video-rate processing of large data volumes. In the complex scenario of high-performance, multichannel Time Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC), a huge amount of data is potentially generated by the acquisition system. Exploiting a dedicated, external, programmable elaboration unit enables a high degree of flexibility to perform different types of analysis. In this paper, we present a GPU-based application that leverages the common unified device architecture application programming interface for video-rate and accurate lifetime extraction from TCSPC data acquired at a rate of up to 10 Gbit/s.Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) are a powerful alternative to central processing units, especially for data-parallel, video-rate processing of large data volumes. In the complex scenario of high-performance, multichannel Time Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC), a huge amount of data is potentially generated by the acquisition system. Exploiting a dedicated, external, programmable elaboration unit enables a high degree of flexibility to perform different types of analysis. In this paper, we present a GPU-based application that leverages the common unified device architecture application programming interface for video-rate and accurate lifetime extraction from TCSPC data acquired at a rate of up to 10 Gbit/s.

The minimization of the dead time necessary for the operation of a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) plays a crucial role in many demanding single-photon applications. Among these, it is worth mentioning the implementation of airborne light detection and ranging systems exploited to scan the terrain topography through semiporous obscurations. In this letter, we present the development and the experimental characterization of a fully integrated active quenching circuit able to drive custom-technology SPADs with a dead time as low as 6.2 ns, corresponding to a maximum photon count rate of more than 160 Mcps. Thanks to the use of a high-voltage CMOS fabrication technology, the circuit is able to operate also SPADs that require an excess bias of few tens of Volts, like the recently developed red-enhanced SPAD up to a maximum photon count rate of 100 Mcps.

Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting (TCSPC) is an excellent technique used in a great variety of scientific experiments to acquire exceptionally fast and faint light signals. Above all, in Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM), it is widely recognized as the gold standard to record sub-nanosecond transient phenomena with picosecond precision. Unfortunately, TCSPC has an intrinsic limitation: to avoid the so-called pile-up distortion, the experiments have been historically carried out, limiting the acquisition rate below 5% of the excitation frequency. In 2017, we demonstrated that such a limitation can be overcome if the detector dead time is exactly matched with the excitation period, thus paving the way to unprecedented speedup of FLIM measurements. In this paper, we present the first single-channel system that implements the novel proposed methodology to be used in modern TCSPC experimental setups. To achieve this goal, we designed a compact detection head, including a custom single-photon avalanche diode externally driven by a fully integrated Active Quenching Circuit (AQC), featuring a finely tunable dead time and a short reset time. The output timing signal is extracted by using a picosecond precision Pick-Up Circuit (PUC) and fed to a newly developed timing module consisting of a mixed-architecture Fast Time to Amplitude Converter (F-TAC) followed by high-performance Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs). Data are transmitted in real-time to a Personal Computer (PC) at USB 3.0 rate for specific and custom elaboration. Preliminary experimental results show that the new TCSPC system is suitable for implementing the proposed technique, achieving, indeed, high timing precision along with a count rate as high as 40 Mcps.

Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) is an essential tool in many scientific applications, where the recording of optical pulses with picosecond precision is required. Unfortunately, a key issue has to be faced: distortion phenomena can affect TCSPC experiments at high count rates. In order to avoid this problem, TCSPC experiments have been commonly carried out by limiting the maximum operating frequency of a measurement channel below 5% of the excitation frequency, leading to a long acquisition time. Recently, it has been demonstrated that matching the detector dead time to the excitation period allows to keep distortion around zero regardless of the rate of impinging photons. This solution paves the way to unprecedented measurement speed in TCSPC experiments. In this scenario, the front-end circuits that drive the detector play a crucial role in determining the performance of the system, both in terms of measurement speed and timing performance. Here we present two fully integrated front-end circuits for Single Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs): a fast Active Quenching Circuit (AQC) and a fully-differential current pick-up circuit. The AQC can apply very fast voltage variations, as short as 1.6ns, to reset external custom-technology SPAD detectors. A fast reset, indeed, is a key parameter to maximize the measurement speed. The current pick-up circuit is based on a fully differential structure which allows unprecedented rejection of disturbances that typically affect SPAD-based systems at the end of the dead time. The circuit permits to sense the current edge resulting from a photon detection with picosecond accuracy and precision even a few picoseconds after the end of the dead time imposed by the AQC. This is a crucial requirement when the system is operated at high rates. Both circuits have been deeply characterized, especially in terms of achievable measurement speed and timing performance.

In this letter, we present the timing performance of an optimized red-enhanced single-photon avalanche diode (RE-SPAD) manufactured with a fully custom fabrication process. The detector has been characterized with an external CMOS front end circuit able to read out the RE-SPAD avalanche current and provide the timing information with state-of-the-art jitter. In particular, the careful minimization of the RE-SPAD capacitive parasitics, along with the transimpedance architecture and the gigahertz bandwidth of the front end circuit, allowed the achievement of a timing jitter as low as 83 ps full width at half maximum that increases only up to 103 ps for a detection threshold as high as 600 mV. This feature makes it possible to implement high-threshold detection systems insensitive to the electrical disturbances coming from other SPADs integrated in the same chip, demonstrating that the extension of this work to multichannel systems is feasible.

In this letter, we demonstrate a dynamic range as high as 152 dB with a detection head based on a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD). This result has been attained by exploiting two key factors: on one hand, the low dark count rate (9 cps) of a custom-technology SPAD; and on the other hand, the maximum count rate (120 Mcps) achievable with a new generation active quenching circuit and an optimized assembly of the system. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest dynamic range reported so far in the literature for a SPAD. Even more important, this value has been attained without sacrificing other detector parameters, such as active area diameter (50 $\mu$ m), photon detection efficiency (50% at 550-nm wavelength), and afterpulsing probability (2%).

In recent years, single-photon timing techniques have been employed in a steadily increasing number of applications. Most of these applications require high detector performance in terms of noise, photon detection efficiency, time resolution, and number of pixels operating in parallel. The detectors best fitting these requirements are single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) arrays built in custom technology, although the systems based on such detectors are limited to a few pixels. In this paper, we present a novel read-out circuit, developed in a 0.18- $\mu $ m high voltage-CMOS technology, for the detection of the SPAD avalanche current: the designed circuit is based on a 2.2-GHz bandwidth integrated transimpedance amplifier, followed by a low-pass filter, to reduce crosstalk, and by an integrated comparator. The pick-up circuit has a total power dissipation of 1.1 mW, occupies an overall area of 15500 $\mu $ $\mathrm{m}^{2}$ and shows a time resolution down to 48 ps and a negligible crosstalk between two different pixels. All these features can open the way to the development of large SPAD arrays, characterized by a performance comparable with that of the single-pixel structures. Moreover, the good agreement between the simulated and the measured resolution (with a 14% maximum error) makes the future improvement of the evaluated performance possible.

Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) is a very efficient technique for measuring weak and fast optical signals, but it is mainly limited by the relatively "long" measurement time. Multichannel systems have been developed in recent years aiming to overcome this limitation by managing several detectors or TCSPC devices in parallel. Nevertheless, if we look at state-of-the-art systems, there is still a strong trade-off between the parallelism level and performance: the higher the number of channels, the poorer the performance. In 2013, we presented a complete and compact 32 × 1 TCSPC system, composed of an array of 32 single-photon avalanche diodes connected to 32 time-to-amplitude converters, which showed that it was possible to overcome the existing trade-off. In this paper, we present an evolution of the previous work that is conceived for high-throughput fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. This application can be addressed by the new system thanks to a centralized logic, fast data management and an interface to a microscope. The new conceived hardware structure is presented, as well as the firmware developed to manage the operation of the module. Finally, preliminary results, obtained from the practical application of the technology, are shown to validate the developed system.

In this paper, we describe a novel solution to increase the speed of Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) measurements by almost an order of magnitude while providing, in principle, zero distortion regardless of the experimental conditions. Typically, the relatively long dead time associated with the conversion electronics requires a proper tune of the excitation power in order to avoid distortions of the reconstructed waveform due to pileup and counting loss. As a result, the maximum operating rate of a TCSPC channel is now limited between 1% and 5% of the excitation frequency, thus leading to relatively long acquisition times. We show that negligible distortion (below 1%) is guaranteed if the dead time associated with the converter is kept below the dead time of the detector, and at the same time the detector dead time is matched to the duration of the excitation period. In this way, unprecedented high-speed operation is possible. In this paper, we provide a theoretical analysis of the technique, including the main non-idealities which are introduced by a generic physical implementation. The results are supported by both numerical simulations and analytical calculations.

The minimization of Single Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) dead time is a key factor to speed up photon counting and timing measurements. We present a fully integrated Active Quenching Circuit (AQC) able to provide a count rate as high as 100 MHz with custom technology SPAD detectors. The AQC can also operate the new red enhanced SPAD and provide the timing information with a timing jitter Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) as low as 160 ps.

Timing measurements with silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are affected by the major issue of the so-called time-walk effect; this is due to the intrinsic architecture of SiPM devices. A new technique for time-walk compensation in timing measurements with SiPMs is presented and discussed, feasible with a low-complexity and low-cost circuitry and able to improve the timing accuracy. The validity of the presented technique has been experimentally proven with a 3 × 3 mm2 Hamamatsu MPPC, achieving a jitter reduction of a factor 2.85 compared with the case without time-walk compensation. To perform the experimental validation, a discrete-components transimpedance amplifier is developed with large bandwidth and low jitter, specifically designed to read-out and amplify the SiPM signal.

In recent years, lifetime measurements by means of the Time Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) technique have led to a significant breakthrough in medical and biological fields. Unfortunately, the many advantages of TCSPC-based approaches come along with the major drawback of a relatively long acquisition time. The exploitation of multiple channels in parallel could in principle mitigate this issue, and at the same time it opens the way to a multi-parameter analysis of the optical signals, e.g., as a function of wavelength or spatial coordinates. The TCSPC multichannel solutions proposed so far, though, suffer from a tradeoff between number of channels and performance, and the overall measurement speed has not been increased according to the number of channels, thus reducing the advantages of having a multichannel system. In this paper, we present a novel readout architecture for bi-dimensional, high-density Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) arrays, specifically designed to maximize the throughput of the whole system and able to guarantee an efficient use of resources. The core of the system is a routing logic that can provide a dynamic connection between a large number of SPAD detectors and a much lower number of high-performance acquisition channels. A key feature of our smart router is its ability to guarantee high efficiency under any operating condition.

Single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) have been subject to a fast improvement in recent years. In particular, custom technologies specifically developed to fabricate SPAD devices give the designer the freedom to pursue the best detector performance required by applications. A significant breakthrough in this field is represented by the recent introduction of a red enhanced SPAD (RE-SPAD) technology, capable of attaining a good photon detection efficiency in the near infrared range (e.g. 40% at a wavelength of 800 nm) while maintaining a remarkable timing resolution of about 100ps full width at half maximum. Being planar, the RE-SPAD custom technology opened the way to the development of SPAD arrays particularly suited for demanding applications in the field of life sciences. However, to achieve such excellent performance custom SPAD detectors must be operated with an external active quenching circuit (AQC) designed on purpose. Next steps toward the development of compact and practical multichannel systems will require a new generation of monolithically integrated AQC arrays. In this paper we present a new, fully integrated AQC fabricated in a high-voltage 0.18 μm CMOS technology able to provide quenching pulses up to 50 Volts with fast leading and trailing edges. Although specifically designed for optimal operation of RE-SPAD devices, the new AQC is quite versatile: it can be used with any SPAD detector, regardless its fabrication technology, reaching remarkable count rates up to 80 Mcounts/s and generating a photon detection pulse with a timing jitter as low as 119 ps full width at half maximum. The compact design of our circuit has been specifically laid out to make this IC a suitable building block for monolithically integrated AQC arrays.

Excellent performance of custom technology SPAD detectors have been widely demonstrated in recent years. Low-jitter timing measurements with these detectors require front end electronics able to sense the avalanche current at a very low level when the multiplication process is still confined in a very small area around the photon absorption point. Best in class results (35 ps full width at half maximum) have been obtained with discrete circuits not suitable to be used in densely integrated systems of SPAD arrays required by modern demanding applications. A new fully integrated front end able to read out the avalanche current with a timing jitter as low as 32 ps and suitable to be exploited with SPAD arrays is presented.

Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) has been long recognized as the most sensitive method for fluorescence lifetime measurements, but often requiring “long” data acquisition times. This drawback is related to the limited counting capability of the TCSPC technique, due to pile-up and counting loss effects. In recent years, multi-module TCSPC systems have been introduced to overcome this issue. Splitting the light into several detectors connected to independent TCSPC modules proportionally increases the counting capability. Of course, multi-module operation also increases the system cost and can cause space and power supply problems. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach based on a new detector and processing electronics designed to reduce the overall system dead time, thus enabling efficient photon collection at high excitation rate. We present a fast active quenching circuit for single-photon avalanche diodes which features a minimum dead time of 12.4 ns. We also introduce a new Time-to-Amplitude Converter (TAC) able to attain extra-short dead time thanks to the combination of a scalable array of monolithically integrated TACs and a sequential router. The fast TAC (F-TAC) makes it possible to operate the system towards the upper limit of detector count rate capability (∼80 Mcps) with reduced pile-up losses, addressing one of the historic criticisms of TCSPC. Preliminary measurements on the F-TAC are presented and discussed.

Time Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) is a very effective measurement technique to perform the analysis of extremely weak and fast, periodical light signals. Based on the detection of single photons and on the measure of their arrival time within the period of the signal, TCSPC technique is increasingly widespread in a large number of fields, from medicine to chemistry and biology, and in a large number of applications such as single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy, fluorescence imaging, and laser scanning microscopy. Nowadays, most of the high-performance TCSPC systems are focused on single channel applications and the use of multiple parallel acquisition chains is necessary to obtain a multidimensional system, , with very high costs and large occupied areas. It is therefore necessary to develop new acquisition systems based, on the one hand, on detectors with high quantum efficiency and suitable for parallel operation, and, on the other hand, on electronics intrinsically designed to simultaneously acquire data from multiple channels. Concerning the first aspect, Single Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) proved to be a valid alternative to PMTs in many applications, from quantum cryptography to astrophysics and biology. Recent systems for single-photon timing applications typically present a trade-off between number of channels and performance: the higher the number of channels, the poorer the obtained performance on each channel. In order to overcome this trade-off, in this work we present the development of the detector and the electronics necessary to develop photon timing systems featuring a large number of channels in conjunction with high performance. Starting from the SPAD developed in our lab in the last years, it is important to develop all the integrated electronics to extract and elaborate the timing information. First of all, a circuit capable of reading directly the avalanche current coming from the detectors is of the utmost importance in order to achieve a very high temporal resolution while minimizing the crosstalk between adjacent channels. Thus, a fully integrated trans-impedance stage has been designed in 180nm Si-Ge with a gigahertz bandwidth in order to obtain few tens of picoseconds full width at half maximum resolution and negligible crosstalk between different channels. Secondly, a fully integrated array of high performance time-to-amplitude converters (TAC) has been designed. In fact, in any TCSPC application one of the most important section in the acquisition chain is the time measurement block. Three main performances are required in the time measure to reconstruct the analyzed signal without introducing distortions: a high temporal resolution (in the order of few tens of picoseconds), a differential nonlinearity (DNL) of few percent of the histogram channel width and a high measurement rate (in the Megahertz order). Finally, in order to develop a fully parallel and compact TCSPC system, resource sharing is mandatory. To achieve this goal an integrated chip capable of routing the signal coming from the trans-impedance stage towards the time measurement circuit has been designed in 180nm Si-Ge technology. Since the probability of detecting a photon during one excitation cycle in any TCSPC measurement is far less than one, we have designed the routing logic to connect the SPAD to one of the TAC converters only if a photon has been detected, thus allowing the system to have a number of TAC converters lower than the detectors one. The design of these three main blocks in conjunction with fully custom high efficiency SPAD arrays opens the way to the development of a TCSPC acquisition system that can feature both a very high number of parallel channels and very high performance.

The analysis of extremely weak, ultrafast and periodical light signals is increasingly widespread in a large number of fields, from chemistry and biology to telemetry and communication, and in a great variety of applications, from quantum cryptography to fluorescence imaging. Speaking of fluorescent lifetime analysis, for example, the detection of very faint and fast optical signals is fundamental to investigate the complex interactions between molecules that play a key role in many crucial issues such as the origin and growth mechanisms of tumors. In this domain the Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) technique is very effective to reconstruct the light waveform when both extremely high time resolution and linearity are required. TCSPC is based on the detection of single photons and on the record of their arrival times: if the probability of detecting a photon during one excitation cycle is far less than one, the histogram of photon arrivals per time bin exactly corresponds to the temporal trend of the light signal. In order to properly reconstruct the light waveform a time measurement block featuring very high performance is necessary: this circuit has to be able to measure time intervals of few hundreds of nanoseconds with picosecond time resolution and a differential non-linearity much lower than few percents of the time bin width. Moreover a growing number of techniques do now require to collect data from multiple channels at the same time. Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), Fluorescence Diffuse Optical Tomography (FDOT) and single-molecule spectroscopy, for example, can benefit a lot of a system capable of providing simultaneous analysis in temporal or spectral range. Indeed, concurrency not only reduces the measurement time, revealing dynamic phenomena even on very short timescales but it also opens the way to spectrally resolved measurements that analyze different events occurring simultaneously, like Fluorescence Cross-Correlation Spectroscopy (FCCS). Nevertheless the development of a truly parallel acquisition system featuring both high performance and a high number of independent channels is still an open challenge: to achieve this goal the design of a time measurement circuit capable of acquiring data from several channels in parallel while providing high performance on each channel is of the utmost importance. In this work a fully integrated array of 16 time to amplitude converters (TAC) designed in 0.35µm SiGe technology is presented. The first simulations show very high performance on each channel with a FWHM time resolution lower than 19ps and a differential non linearity lower than 0.4% peak-to-peak of the LSB. In order to reduce the overall area of the chip, pairs of converter stages share all the conversion chain through a 2 input multiplexer. The simulated dead time on the entire full scale range is 191ns, corresponding to a maximum conversion frequency of 5.24MHz per channel. The obtained results on the designed 16 channel TAC array are extremely good and, if the performance are verified by experimental measurements, this array will be one of the fundamental blocks of a fully parallel high-performance TCSPC acquisition system. Based on high efficiency fully custom single photon detectors (SPAD) and on a front-end electronics specifically designed to properly work with these sensors, the final system will be the upgrade of a few channels high performance acquisition chain already developed in the same technology.